SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 1998--Altera
Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) today reported third quarter sales of $164.2
million, up 2% from the previous quarter and up 1% over the same
period last year. Overall sales growth of 2% was achieved by
sequential gains of 2% in North America and 11% in Europe. Offsetting
growth in North America and Europe, third quarter sales in
Asia/Pacific were flat and Japan experienced a 5% sequential decline.
Under the new categorization of product revenues announced last
quarter (see note below), new and mainstream products made up over 50%
of total revenues for the quarter, and their growth fully offset
declines in mature and other products. New product revenues grew 42%
sequentially representing a tenfold increase year on year, and
mainstream product revenues grew 10% sequentially, an increase of 80%
year on year.
Net income for the third quarter was $40.1 million, an increase
of 10% from the previous quarter, and up 3% from the third quarter of
1997. Both gross margins and operating expenses, as a percentage of
sales, improved from the previous quarter to 61.9% and 25.8%,
respectively. Third quarter earnings per share, on a diluted basis,
were $0.40, an increase of $0.02 from the prior quarter, and
equivalent to the same period last year. Third quarter earnings
included an after-tax charge of $3.3 million, or $0.03 per share,
representing the Company's share in the start-up losses of WaferTech
(a joint venture with TSMC to manufacture wafers in a state-of-the-art
facility in Camas, Washington). Excluding WaferTech results, diluted
earnings per share were $0.43, up $0.03 from the same period last
year.
Altera added $51.1 million of cash to its balance sheet during
the quarter, after the repurchase of 260,000 shares of its common
stock for $8.6 million and routine capital expenditures of $6.4
million.
During the third quarter, the Company announced APEX(TM)
(formerly code-named Raphael), its newest family of devices, which
utilizes a revolutionary, new architecture for programmable logic
devices (PLDs). The APEX family of embedded PLDs, fabricated on a 0.25
micron SRAM process, marks an industry first with the introduction of
an innovative embedded architecture. The MultiCore(TM) architecture
includes look-up tables, product terms and increased amounts of
embedded memory including ROM, RAM and CAM. With initial gate counts
ranging from 100,000 to 1 million gates and future process migrations
enabling up to 2 million gates, the APEX device family will allow
designers to integrate complex, high-performance systems on a single
programmable chip.
APEX will be supported by Altera's fourth-generation design tool,
Quartus(TM). Quartus has been specifically designed to support
million-plus gate designs with features such as workgroup-based
computing, incremental compilation and seamless integration with
leading third-party EDA tools.
Earlier this month, the roll out of the previously announced
FLEX10KE family was initiated with first shipments of the FLEX10K50E.
Manufactured on a 0.25 micron process and operating at a 2.5V core
voltage, the FLEX10KE family offers higher performance and lower power
consumption with logic densities ranging from 30K to 250K gates and up
to 96K bits of on-chip, dual-port RAM. Version 9.0 of the
MAX+PLUS(R)II design software, introduced during the third quarter,
supports all FLEX10KE devices, allowing customers to start designs in
advance of silicon for the entire FLEX10KE family.
Rodney Smith, President and CEO stated, "We are pleased with the
financial and operational results achieved during the quarter. Record
sales results were obtained in both Europe and total International, in
what historically has been a seasonally weak quarter. Both new and
mainstream products delivered double-digit sequential growth and
achieved the important milestone of contributing more than half the
quarter's revenues. We plan to continue on time execution of new
product introductions, and believe we will demonstrate continued
industry leadership with truly innovative products such as the APEX
family and Quartus design tools."
Note on Product Category Changes
As announced last quarter, effective this quarter Altera has
changed the make up of the product categories as reported each
quarter. Remaining in the "New" category are the FLEX10KA/10KE,
FLEX6000/6000A, and MAX7000A devices. Added to the "New" category are
the MAX7000B and APEX devices. The FLEX10K, MAX7000S, and MAX9000
products, previously categorized as "New", now make up the
"Mainstream" category in its entirety. All the products previously
reported in the "Mainstream" category are now classified as either
Mature (FLEX8000 and MAX7000) or Other (FLASHlogic). For further
details please refer to Altera's Investor Relations web page @
www.altera.com.
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